RE:
I'm experiencing the same problem as above, where CTRL-clicking an otherwise legit hyperlink to a PDF will raise a dialog box: "Unable to open (link). Cannot open the specified file."
I found one factor that contributes to Word's decision making about "Unable to open (link). Cannot open the specified file."
To reproduce the error:
If the server sends any effectively "no-cache" headers, then Word will "Unable to open (link). Cannot open the specified file."
To avoid the above:
If the server either does not send cache-related headers, or simply goes "Cache-Control: max-age=600" (max-age, as opposed to no-cache), Word will either open the PDF or try to get it downloaded via the default browser.
Open-ended investigations to do (questions for you):
- Are there any other factors?
- Should Microsoft "fix" this? Or is this a "good behaviour" that Microsoft built around the concept of "no-cache"? If so, please elaborate on what they were (likely) thinking.
